Laser Mode - Cygnus (Biosoft)

 

Title: Laser Mode

Artist: Cygnus

Label: Biosoft

Cat Number: 

Genre: Electro

1: Superneutral

2: Activating Laser Mode

3: Very Super Natural

4: Ishii’s Innerelemental Boutique

5: Naomi’s Laser Paradise

6: Rise Of The Robots (Making Of A Cyborg)

7: The Laser Lounge

8: Que Viva Vangelos

9: Marlon Gladstone’s Science Workshop (Creation Of The Robot Cult)

10: Utopian Skies

11: Y Que Viva Vangelos

12: The Biosoft Wellness Shoppe

13: Deactivating Laser Mode

The prolific and extremely talented Cygnus seems to have a boundless imagination. Conceptually, ‘Laser Mode’ comes correct, painting a vivid electronic picture of an intergalactic future where all senses are radically enhanced and the imagination is unfettered. Cygnus, aka Philip Washington, comes on like a latter day electro Prince, playing and saying everything on this wonderful, encyclopaedic collection. I wish that I could do justice to this album with words, but I doubt it. And although normally pigeonholed as electro, this is so much more. ‘Very Super Natural’ is one of the best and smoothest pieces of house I’ve heard in a long time; ‘Rise Of The Robots (Making Of A Cyborg)’ is a beat less ambient piece that could soundtrack ‘Metropolis’’ ‘Maschinenmensch’ scene in a parallel universe. ‘Marlon Gladstone’s Science Workshop (Creation Of The Robot Cult)’ is a great piece of off-kilter machine funk that insidiously burns its bottom-heavy beats into your brain by way of sinister syncopation; and ‘The Biosoft Wellness Shoppe’ is a paean to dislocated futurist hippies everywhere. Nothing crystallises the feeling of living in a fug of funk better than the first two tracks though. ‘Superneutral’ and ‘Activating Laser Mode’ are stunning soundtrack facets to fictional low riding within the subtropical suburbs of a reimagined afrofuturist hinterland.